Balancing Hoplite Battles

[Maion Maroneios]

As the team members may know, my role in the development of this mod is balancing battles between hoplite armies. As we know from sources (which will be included in due time), hoplite battles were short, brutal and with surprisingly low casualties (modern scholars estimate the casualties to be about 6% for the loosing army). As such, I will soon start a series of tests (the results of which I will present here) which will allow me to represent those features as accurately as possible, within the limitations of the game engine.

Any ideas or suggestions are also appreciated. Expect updates and test previews soon, as I have recently managed to get all the files I needed.

Maion

[Old_King_Coal]

I'm thinking the best way to start would be to see whether or not u can make the shieldwall the default formation for the hoplites the way the phalanx is default for the phalangites

[Maion Maroneios]

AFAIK, that is either difficult or it needs tweaking in the AI formations file. The AI seems to use the shieldwall only scarsely, occasionally using it when faced with a cavalry charge. I will have to tweak the files that have to do with AI formations to do that, but tha is probably going to be the second stage.

Maion

[Old_King_Coal]

yes I supose so, just be sure to get it done eventually ;)

[Skullheadhq]

M2TW has an nice option for that, y know.
With prisoners and stuff.

[Old_King_Coal]

I'm thinking we might do a Strategos 2 for Medieval Total War, but at the moment let's just stick to RTW

[vartan]

If you're not using BI, you won't need shield wall. Just demonstrate it using mass adjustments. And if you're going to have enemy rout after losing 6% of it's men...I don't think that's possible in RTW. If you want to come close I suppose you could make everybody's morale really low. Then after losing a small amount of men one side would rout...but this would be so sudden! Nice ideas though. I love the mod idea.

[Old_King_Coal]

I think that it is possible to make the enemy rout much easier than it is now, and since most greek hoplites were citizen soldiers we can expect that they will rout if things aren't going fully their way.

Well I'm sure Maion can figure something out

[falcon]

No they only ran away when their line was broken. (Since continuing would have led to slaughter) But before that there was considerable struggle between the front lines.

I think using the standard behavior for the in-game hoplites will do.. Or if you insist on them routing quicker use the militia hoplite behavior pattern.. But I don't think they would have routed that quickly..

[Old_King_Coal]

I think that one possibility could be to have the short_pike thing for hoplites nd shieldwall, tht way they may have aspects of the rtw phalanx and the shieldwall

[fireblade]

Due to the retraining possibilities it's fairly easy to bring an army back from the death in RTW. Far easier than it was in ancient greece, so higher casualties before the rout are acceptable I think. And as a sidenote, if their morale gets lowered, a simple outflanking movement could cause an instant massive rout, while a human player then would simply chase down the other army.

[Old_King_Coal]

ya it's going to be tough, if any texters can offer help we'd appreciate it!